Over the last several days, Special Victims Unit investigators have made arrests in two high profile cases. When asked how they gathered evidence and were able to arrest the offenders in these cases Lt Anthony McFadden replied simply, “Sheer determination and soft pretzels for every meal.” Captain John Darby, Commanding Officer of the Special Victims Unit, tried to deflect the praise, “The amazing part about it was that people from across the globe were trying to help us catch criminals.” The Captain was speaking of tips we received from across the world. One of those tips came from Rob Murano of Woburn, Massachusetts. Rob studied the surveillance video and was able to pinpoint the make, model and year of the suspect’s vehicle and sent us his findings in an email. Another came all the way from Germany. Kenneth Weselake, an employee of BMW, used his expertise in motor vehicles and also identified the make, model and year of the car we were looking for. Ken also said that he was looking forward to helping law enforcement in the future.

Captain John Darby, Commanding Officer Special Victims Unit

These dedicated investigators are used to working behind the scenes without much recognition, but today we are putting them out in front to honor the work that they do. The public should know, SVU investigators may be in the news now, but next week, next month, next year when this blog post is a distant memory, they will be hard at work doing the things that they do to make our city a safer place. From Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, thank you SVU and keep up the good work!

The Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) is the nation's fourth largest police department, with over 6600 sworn members and 800 civilian personnel. The PPD is the primary law enforcement agency responsible for serving Philadelphia County, extending over 140 square-miles in which approximately 1.5 million reside.